Oherald: Editorial: Sunday, July 09, 2017.
When a
vigilance inquiry is recommended, purely based on simple information but dogged
work done by Herald in its reportage, there is cause to feel vindicated that
the pursuit of news can be a rewarding end itself.
When a
vigilance inquiry is recommended, purely based on simple information but dogged
work done by Herald in its reportage, there is cause to feel vindicated that
the pursuit of news can be a rewarding end itself.
The
information which is embedded and yet available in the system, documents every
move, every decision and yet every wrong doing. There is one thing about the
government and its system. Everything is on file. And therefore, if a
government really wants to clean up the stables and go to the bottom of every
decision which is not made in the state’s interest, or where the exchequer has
been looted, taking with it the trust of the people, there is nothing that can
stop it from doing so.
As we apply
for and study countless RTI sourced documents, there is a very interesting
thread which emerges. Honest bureaucrats have covered their tracks with
dissenting remarks, strong objections, advising against taking hasty decisions,
while others either out of ignorance or out of design have obeyed wrong orders
and find themselves in the dock.
The executive
engineer of the Water Resources Department, P B Badami, who was apparently His
Masters Voice of then Water Resources Minister Dayanand Mandrekar, is one such
officer. Reacting to Herald’s reports on the controversial Siolim jetty
project, WRD minister Vinod Palyekar, clearly points at Badami, as the
architect of the Siolim jetty scam.
“It is
interesting to note how Badami apparently has not conducted or done required
ground work before starting such a project. It clearly looks like the said EE
PB Badami has acted in haste and as a matter of fact undue haste resulting in
stoppage of project,” Palyekar wrote on file, which recommending a vigilance
inquiry into the Siolim Jetty project.
As Herald
found and the minister acknowledged, there were no permissions from CRZ
authorities. The project was pushed in such haste that the department itself
wasn’t quite clear what the contract sought to be given, was for. The
minister’s notings are clear. “Plans for the project are not placed in the file
pertaining to the project which clearly appears that the WRD was not sure what
was being constructed through contractor.”
The minister’s
words were telling. “I am surprised how WRD could undertake project involving
such a huge amount from public exchequer without study and necessary
permissions.”
The
government of the day, must now ensure that a scam in the allotment of work for
the Siolim jetty gets the same attention and seriousness as the scam in the
allotment of plots in GIDC or for that matter the purchase of lands
disproportionate to the income of the former GIDC chairman, and now Quepem Cong
MLA and leader of the opposition, Babu Kavlekar.
Probes into
actions involving loss to the exchequer should all get equal treatment, even if
former Congress MLAs who were the target of those probes are now BJP MLAs and
Ministers.
The only
solace here is that in the ocean of decisions, there are banks of documents in
public domain. The pursuit of zero tolerance to corruption is not just easy but
easily track-able.
So everyone
from a senior revenue official caught taking a bribe, to a mining official who
looked the other way as illegal ore was smuggled out to a WRD officer who
attempted to clear a jetty project under the garb of repairing bunds, cannot really hide from the
system and the trail of documents. All it needs is a government ready to work on
the document trail.
As for the
people and the media, they have the resources and the law to doggedly pursue
the truth. An honest approach sometimes also gets the backing of the
government, to at the very least, start a probe.
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